I use Spotify.
Yes, I know there are so many better alternatives. But I can’t switch. There are just so many features that I basically can’t live without.
But recently, I have been trying alternatives. I have tried Youtube Music, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer and even Amazon Music.
I still use Spotify everyday.
Why I use Spotify
There are 3 main reasons I use Spotify:
Ecosystem
If there is an app that wants to integrate with a music streaming service, they will probably choose Spotify. It is basically the most popular music streaming service in the world. For example, stats.fm only works with Spotify and Apple Music (afaik). There’s a Raycast plugin for Spotify. It integrates with Discord for a rich presence. I can connect it to Home Assistant (why not).
Basically Spotify’s ecosystem is unmatched and while I don’t use too many of these integrations, I would like to have options.
Community
This kinda ties in with the last point. If I want to share a playlist with someone and send them a Tidal link, they can’t do anything with it. Now if I send them a Spotify link, most of the time they can listen to it. Sure, some services like Deezer have solutions to this, and there are also some third party solutions, but they are just not as good as it just working.
Spotify connect
I listen to music on my phone and computer interchangeably. I just love having controls on both devices without any extra work (ie. KDE Connect). I know this is an excuse for not letting you play on multiple devices at the same time, but it is just so useful. Also it is basically required for the Discord integration. I have not found anything like it.
What I tried
I decided I hate the Spotify UI (This does matter for me) so I started researching other services
Youtube Music
I already have Youtube Premium, so this was the logical choice.
I liked the UI. A lot.
But then I looked at my liked “songs” playlist and realised the problem.
Yeah so it syncs your likes with youtube.
You are meant to be able to turn this off but it DOESNT WORK.
Wtf is this google.
Anyway all the tech parody songs I had listened to and liked to support the creator were just in my liked songs playlist along with everything else.
I commonly shuffle my liked songs so… yeah that wasn’t good.
Tidal
I think Tidal’s UI was actually better than Youtube Music.
I had no problems with it, though I didn’t hear the difference between Spotify’s audio and Tidal’s.
I found I discovered a lot of songs through Tidal, with it’s daily discovery playlist (or whatever) which was shown on the home screen.
Apple Music
Yes, they have an Android app, and I believe it’s actually better than the iOS app which is ironic. You see, when you swipe the now playing screen, the animation should follow your finger. On the android version, swiping it into view followed my finger but
[i gave up on writing this halfway through lmao]